Blood Revenge
by MoonVeil
Summary: After a period of peace from Pitch's defeat, Jack & the other Guardians are called back into action as children begin to mysteriously disappear. But this is not as simple as they think and what they discover will test what they know and believe about the Man in the Moon… Jack/OC


_Blood Revenge_

(Prologue)

From the darkness, a pair of pale blue eyes watched over the forest. Before her lay the destruction that had been wrought that day—trees lay; felled by human machinery. The woman pressed her palm flat against one of the surviving trees, feeling the anguish it felt at the loss of its kin. Fury pounded through her body and she felt wrath stir deep inside her heart.

She turned from the wreckage, towards the twinkling lights of the city that lay beyond the forest limits. They had gone _too far_. Too far!

She had put up with the human's insatiable appetite for destruction for nearly five hundred years and it been five hundred years too long. This forest had been her sacred resting grounds—some of her original worshipers had been coming here to give her offerings since they had crossed the oceans and left their homelands many years ago.

Moving along the destruction, the woman bent to lovingly touch one of the dead trees, her power barely registering any life within it at all. She squeezed her palm shut until her knuckles turned white. She looked back at the city and, breathing deep, sought the faint aura of the human who had felled this tree.

Her senses stretched out, far away from her body, sinking into the city beyond where she could feel thousands—millions—of life auras, some sparkling with life, some barely lit with it. The aura led her to a home that was slanted with disrepair.

Her body followed her mind with a snap, appearing gracefully before the shack of a house. The white house was cast in darkness and unlit like many of those around it. But there was light within.

She looked silently into one of the front windows, where she could barely see a child's room through the thin curtains. But she could not, as much as she wanted to, enter. She leaned closer to the window, her mere presence bringing a semblance life back to the dead wood from which the house had been built. The siding creaked as little vines crawled out from inside, stretching towards the moonlight above.

But then, to her complete and utter shock, the man who she had sought came and—as if to taunt her—stood in the child's doorway. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, looking tired and weary.

"Night Christina." He told the child on the bed. The girl pretended to be asleep, rolling away to face the wall. He sighed and flicked the light switch off. The pale pink walls went as dark as the exterior of the house; but a small princess nightlight in the corner of the room kept it from being completely submerged in darkness.

The woman laughed at the stupidity of humans. Perhaps humans had forgotten her—but she was not gone. And now; now she was being _invited_ into homes so easily. He had invited her into his home without ever realizing.

She breezed through the wall as if she were made of air and not solid matter, stepping onto the worn carpet just as the lights went out. The girl on the bed continued to pretend to sleep on the chance her father returned; but the woman could tell she was still awake. She brushed her fingers through her long hair and suddenly she was glowing as if a switch had been turned back on inside of her. The child started at the sudden brightness and rolled over, eyes wide.

The girl gasped, sitting up in her bed, mouth agape. The woman knew what she saw was beyond imagination; there was no human comprehension of her beauty. Her blonde hair shone with the light that came from beneath her skin: it was the color of the brightest gold and hung to her waist in large, looping curls. Her eyes were mossy green and darkened, like the burnt husks of her beloved trees.

"Who are you?" the girl asked. The woman's lovely appearance had set her at ease, her initial fears gone. She scooted towards the edge of her bed, leaning over as though enthralled by the sparkling waves of silk that formed her dress. As the child watched, tiny flowers bloomed and faded, only the bloom again all over her brown dress.

"Come dance with me," she said, ignoring the question entirely. She smiled charmingly, holding out her hands. "Come dance, Christina."

The girl swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her brown eyes wider yet. "How do you know my name?"

"We're friends." The woman told her. "Aren't we?"

The girl breathed out excitedly. "Yes." She smiled back and took the woman's hands in her own. They spun around the room wildly, making a dance all their own. The child in her arms danced happily, her head tilting back to watch her pale pink walls as they spun. They danced until they were breathless with glee.

"Won't you come home with me?" she asked the child.

"Home?"

She slowed their erratic dance, leaning over so that the child could see deep into her eyes: Christina stared into them, mesmerized by the strange swirling colors. Red, gold, green, brown: the colors of the forest moved into and out of each other with smooth fluidity. She kept her eyes open wide to watch it.

"My home. Won't you come? We'd love for you to come: just for a little while…"

Christina's smile faded a little as she glanced to the doorway where her father had stood and invited the woman in. She looked back at the warm, welcoming face of the woman and the smile returned. Her father wouldn't notice if they went for just a short time…

"Can I really?"

"Of course." The woman squeezed the child's hands comfortingly. "Just repeat after me, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good girl, Christina. I wish—"

"I wish," Christina repeated dutifully.

"The _leshii_ would take me."

"The _leshii_ would take me."

The woman smiled and they were gone. The room turned dark, the light from the leshii gone—the empty space silent. In his own room, Christina's father tossed restlessly, unaware that his daughter was lost to him forever.

* * *

A/N: So….I know this is pretty boring and it's all "WHERE'S MAH JACK D8" but I swear all this has a point and (eventually) will make sense. Right now things are being left fairly ambiguous. The leshii is going to have a massive part in the story, so the legends behind them will be revealed with time.

Leshii is a Russian myth and, while I'm taking huge liberties with the background and the mythology, I am trying to stay as true to it as I can. That's all. Hope you enjoyed! See you all next chapter~

(cover image: diseased-mind .deviant art art/ Beautiful-Demon-30112472


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